Thank you! I had no idea this had been studied. Plus it’s nearly 4am, i’m tired and couldn’t think what term to google; ‘touch deprivation’ is of course the perfect description!
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There is a hole in the headrest, and if you are a juicer, they will put a little stainless steel bowl down there on the floor for you.
(the evil massage witches drink the tears of the vanquished after you leave)
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It’s a Nooooo for me. Any dog tries doing that you’ll see me jump ten feet away faster than a cat getting out of a bathtub.
Chinese massages are amazing. We used to have this little building with blind masseurs right next to the language school I worked at. You don’t get undressed or anything, they just put a sheet on top of you and beat the crap out of your muscles. I’d go there during lunch breaks when we had a particularly crazy day with kids everywhere; after half an hour, you’d be ready to go back in again and teach a few more lessons.
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Spas I do not like. Facials, manicures, pedicures, scrubs, blah, do not like.
But a good proper Swedish Massage with someone with a decent touch and finger strength, oh god yes, yes, a thousand times yes.
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The Québecois are snickering too. It isn’t an invariable greeting, but “Hold, peck left, peck right, release” is very, very common.
…and it ain’t like Québec is terribly far from, or terribly foreign to, a lot of the commenters here.
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My comfort zone for physical contact is generally limited to my hands.
If you have a good reason to be touching me (for instance, I’m on the Ski Patrol, whose annual recertification involves a lot of patrollers touching each other to demonstrate a search for injuries), then fine, I’ll tolerate it. If not, if you just stop by my desk at work and start rubbing my shoulders (whoever is reading this please don’t do this to anyone without explicit permission because they may just be too uncomfortable to object), then I will not be happy.
Far from, no. Foreign to? I would argue yes. They do things very different over there. 
Inefficient and mushy. Offends my Protestant Ethic and my Spirit of Capitalism. I’ll have none of it.
We’re pretty new friends, and I’m a high-touch chickie because I’m deep in the yoga world, and people in my world do a whole lot of hugging and kissing, even take special classes on how to give deep, long, meaningful hugs (yes, you want to hug these people who take these kinds of classes). So, I just silently observe for now, recognize that we come from different ideas of what is appropriate touch levels and not try to impose my own ideals. (She grew up in one of these ultra-Catholic sects, so probably not a whole lot of warm-fuzzy stuff there)/
It is new to me to have a trans friend, and I think she was so closeted for so long she’s still adjusting to presenting as a woman publicly, and our temple has a lot of older men in it, too, so for them having an out trans person to interact with is, I think, a new experience. Overall people seem to be doing very well and have been very welcoming to her.
But I am trying to think of little ways to add some touch into her life without invading her space.
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You’re talking about cheese aren’t you?
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i love long, meaningful hugs. but for me they are meaningful because of the trust that has been built, the intimacy based on shared experiences, and frankly the fact that it is exclusive.
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Moins que l’on ne pense. 
Ton éthique hérétique et ton esprit de Saint-Duplessis? : 
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Hugs are fine, not a problem. Cheek kisses? I loathe them, even from people I’ve known for years.
The only time in America that I’ve experienced them from strangers was when I was a young designer working in SF, and we’d hired a photo crew from LA. The photographer and his assistant were every LA stereotype personified, and did the double-cheek-kiss to everyone, all day long, while saying daaaarling! and ciao! After a few hours of shooting, we took a break and they went into the kiss routine, so I joined in, and they both laughed, saying “the DARLING boy, isn’t he just TOO MUCH?” …LA people drive me nuts.
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Fortunately, I have a group of people that has that feeling to it, so that even if it is someone I don’t know super well, it’s not like a creepy feeling to get a great hug from one of them. It’s definitely not something to go and try out on a relative stranger. But…how to explain…over time in the yoga world I’ve gotten more and more comfortable with both giving and receiving contact, and I actually like being a little more out with it than some people are totally used to. Like, I routinely will give a friend a kiss on the cheek along with a hug, which I think is a personal feeling experience - I hope so - and I know not everyone I do it to is used to getting that much (((love))) in that way, but, no, I never feel I assaulted anyone, I just feel like it’s good to push people’s boundaries a bit. I think there could be a creepy line. I don’t know, maybe I’m a creeper and I don’t know it?
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There is a very fine line to tread with this. Lol. But having been immersed a little bit into the yoga world (well, moreso the mindful meditation world, but there’s a lot of crossover there), I know where you’re coming from. There’s an awful lot of love and compassion talk, towards oneself and others.
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Abso-fucking-lutely. My girlfriend knows Swedish massage, and she did this magic thumb-pokey thing in between my shoulder blades, something went ‘twang’, and the horrible pain in my ribs went away forever.
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It’s always awkward for everyone involved when you meet someone who gets nervous because of what they expect from “kissing cultures” like you just can’t wait to jump all over them!
Add the Mexicans to the laughing choir. 
When using a computer on the border between Mexico and the US, you can routinely expect to find about three different keyboard layouts along with 4 different language configurations in common use (1 english, 3 spanish variants) its all fine until you want to type @, you then lose 10 IQ points hunting for the right combination of keys to check your mail. And on some keyboards trying to type the pipe symbol is impossible until you type loadkeys la-latin1
(Which is going to be a couple of tries because the damn dash could be in a couple of different places depending on the setup)
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